Even as the proliferation of Chinese stores in downtown Georgetown continues to serve as evidence of the country’s increasing prominence as the most visible trading presence in the hemisphere, Guyanese fashion designer Carol Fraser has told Stabroek Business that the local fashion industry can do much worse than look to China to accelerate the growth of the sector in Guyana.
Just back from the November 9-11 China-Latin America and the Caribbean (CLAC) Exposition in the Chinese Province of Zuhai, Fraser told this newspaper earlier this week that her “China experience” has persuaded here to “shift focus” with a view to establishing closer business ties with Chinese companies that are combining attractive marketing techniques with advanced technological tools to bring its offerings in the fashion industry to the rest of the world.
And Fraser is encouraging others of her counterparts in the fashion industry to ‘check out’ what the Chinese have to offer both in terms of what she says is the “high class” fabric which local fashion designers crave at prices considerably more favourable than those that obtain in the United States to opportunities to secure contracts through which Chinese manufacturers can produce sizeable numbers of local designs. In her case the recent China event has afforded her the opportunity to work with a Chinese company which she hopes will manufacture some of the hats that she has designed. If she is successful, she says, “it opens up an opportunity for me.”